The Lindens are putting together another of the so called First Look Viewers. Nothing wrong about that one. But what strikes me is this passage in their posting:
Also, regarding the removal of the old particle systems. We are evaluating whether or not we can transparently migrate the deprecated functions to use the new system. If you have any information about how best to map the old functions to use llParticleSystem, please IM Steve Linden in world. Surprisingly, we no longer have anyone here who is familiar with the old particle systems (one of the reasons we want to remove them entirely).
I mean, what's the problem there? They should have documented it entirely in house, they have the code, so they should really, really know how it works.
And if not, they should know how to get in touch with former employees who know how it works. But this? Very, very strange...